Governor Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders announced yesterday their agreement on a bill that would allow authorities to obtain the DNA of anyone convicted of a felony or a penal law misdemeanor and put it in a DNA databank that law enforcement officials could access when investigating other crimes.
The "All Crimes DNA Bill" is the first of its kind in the entire country. Previously -- in New York and everywhere else in Ame... (more)
Last July, we wrote about how the major ISPs had agreed to a "voluntary" "six strikes" plan (really five strikes, but everyone calls it six...) to start acting as Hollywood's private online security guards. And, by "voluntary" we mean without any input from the actual stake holders (customers) and with significant pressure being applied by the Obama administra... (more)
In January, a judge said that the UK could extradite student Richard O'Dwyer to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges for the "crime" of linking to streaming videos hosted elsewhere -- something that had already been found legal in the UK multiple times. This is pretty important, because for it to be criminal inf... (more)
A 12-year-old girl is suing her school district after staff at Minnesota middle school searched her Facebook and e-mail accounts.
The sixth-grade Minnewaska Area Middle School student, named in court documents as R.S., claims she twice suffered humiliating punishment for things she had written on Facebook.
She was also pressured by school officials to given them her password.Her complaint, back by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleges that the girl's First a... (more)
Congress is doing it again: they're proposing overbroad regulations that could have dire consequences for our Internet ecology. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523), introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, allows companies or the government1 free rein to bypass existing laws in order to monitor communications, filter content, or potentially even shut down access to onlin... (more)
Attorney General Eric Holder gave a much publicized speech at Northwestern law school on Monday, in which he attempted to explain the Obama administration's constitutional authority for killing U.S. citizens abroad without judicial oversight. Holder in part claimed that there is a difference between "due process" and "judicial process", the latter of which--according to him--is not guaranteed under the Constit... (more)
In the last two months, two different federal courts have ruled on whether the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination applies to the act of decrypting the contents of a computer. We wrote amicus briefs (PDF) in each case arguing the Fifth Amendment did prevent forced decryption when that act would incriminate a witness. And while our arguments were similar in bot... (more)
We've covered how Senator Wyden has been pressing the administration on ACTA and TPP concerning the process behind both agreements. The State Department has now responded by admitting that ACTA is, in fact, binding on the United States.
Under international law, the ACTA is a legally binding international agree
The Obama administration conducted a mock cyber attack on New York City yesterday in an effort to gain support in the Senate for a cybersecurity bill that internet providers argue will prevent them from making real security improvements.
“Senators from both parties gathered behind closed doors in the U.S. Capitol yesterday for the classified briefing attended by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other administration officials... (more)
This video is here to demonstrate that the TSA’s insistence that the nude body scanner program is effective and necessary is nothing but a fraud, just like their claims that the program is safe (radiation what?) and non-invasive (nude pictures who?). The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort. The TSA has been ... (more)
Last May, James Thompson, the maker of a popular calculator app for the iPhone, got a nasty surprise. "Just got hit by very worrying threat of patent infringement lawsuit," he tweeted.
The letter came from a Texas company called Lodsys LLC. The firm, widely described as a "patent troll," doesn't produce any useful products. Rather, its primary business is suing other companies that accidentally infringe its portfolio of patents, including one on the concept of buying content from ... (more)
When U.S. authorities shuttered sports-wagering site Bodog.com last week, it raised eyebrows across the net because the domain name was registered with a Canadian company, ostensibly putting it beyond the reach of the U.S. government. Working around that, the feds went directly to VeriSign, a U.S.-based internet backbone company that has the contract to manage the coveted .com and other “generic” top-level domains.
EasyDNS, an internet infrastructure company, protested... (more)
Internet service providers BT and TalkTalk have lost their appeal against the UK’s Digital Economy Act. The ISPs had argued that the legislation was incompatible with EU law, but this morning the Court of Appeal decided otherwise and dismissed their appeal. While the decision was welcomed by copyright holders, Internet account holders now face warnings, disconnections and speed throttling.
For almost a year the UK’s Digital Economy Act has been in limbo after two of th... (more)
FBI Director Robert Mueller recently spoke at a cybersecurity conference where he reiterated his belief that so-called cybercrime will soon surpass terrorism as the biggest threat in America. Perhaps this means that the FBI plans to start manufacturing cyber-threats like they do with terrorist plots—or perhaps it means that, as some people have been sayi... (more)
Don't you just love Congress, where almost no bills actually are what they say on the tin? There's some buzz building online about the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011" (or HR 347), which has been positioned as a simple updating of trespassing laws concerning federal grounds. However, as some are pointing out, hidden in there is quite the Easter egg that effectively outlaws... (more)
The State owns among its characteristics a hypocrisy as stunning, fatal, and over-the-top as its double standards. And both are on horrific display in New Jersey this week.
We first survey the trial of Dharun Ravi, formerly a freshman at Rutgers University. This week Our Rulers continued savaging him, as they have for the past 18 months, because his roommate committed suicide. Yes, in defiance of all justice and common sense, the socialist State now holds us responsi... (more)
